US software giant Symantec is considering a divestment of its website certification division, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

According to the sources, who did not wish to be identified as the matter is confidential, talks are underway with a number of potential acquirors, including private equity investors, for a deal which could be worth in excess of USD 1.00 billion.

However, the people cautioned that there is no guarantee of an agreement being reached.

None of the parties involved have commented on the report at this time.

If Symantec does decide to jettison the website certification business it could draw a line under an ongoing dispute with Google, which has cast doubts on the group’s website security by investigating its alleged failure to correctly validate certificates.

For its part, the software firm has denied there is any truth to the claims, saying the search engine operator’s comments are both exaggerated and misleading.

One of Reuters’ sources said the web certification unit’s annual revenue stands at about USD 400.00 million.

According to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk, the last time Symantec completed an asset sale was in January 2016, when it sold Mountain View-headquartered information storage management software developer Veritas Technologies.

Under the terms of that deal, the business was picked up by Carlyle Group and GIC for USD 7.40 billion.

Symantec has been more active as an acquiror recently, having agreed to buy Israeli mobile firewall technology developer Skycure for an undisclosed sum earlier this week.

Other recent targets include Fireglass and WFSW, while the firm signed on the dotted line for a USD 4.65 billion purchase of US web security software company Blue Coat Systems in June 2016 in a deal which subsequently closed in August of that year.